The time required to perform a path hunt through a switching network effectively limits the rate at which circuit-switched or packet-switched communications can be established through that network. The path hunt process involves three basic determinations: 1) identifying one or more paths between a given network inlet and a given network outlet, 2) determining whether any of the identified paths are idle and 3) if more than one of the identified paths are idle, selecting one for use for a particular communication. Once an idle path is selected, further control actions must be taken to enable communication through that path. As disclosed in an article by A. Feiner et al., Bell System Technical Journal, September 1964, pages 2208-2214, a basic decision in the design of the 1 ESS.TM. switch was that of isolating the path hunt function from the switching network itself. A central processor makes all path searches and keeps a continuous record of all pertinent switching information in its memory. One method of performing a network path hunt requires storage, for every possible inlet-outlet pair, information defining all the path components, e.g., network nodes or links, for all network paths interconnecting that inlet-outlet pair. Once all path components are identified in response to a connection request, component busy/idle information is read to determine an idle path. Indeed, this method is time consuming and expensive for large, multi-stage networks, e.g., a 512.times.512 nine-stage network. Fortunately, in some networks, certain regular characteristics of the network may be used to develop relatively fast, non-complex path hunt algorithms. However, there are many other networks for which such algorithms are not presently known. As network designs evolve for use in communicating a wider variety of voice, image and data information, and specifically for networks designed for implementation in the photonics domain and where circuit-switched or packet-switched connections are requested at a high rate, the absence of efficient path hunt algorithms may preclude the use of network designs which would otherwise be very well suited for particular applications.